


Can't Be Friends

by lanaskyeqc



Category: Coronation Street
Genre: Angst, Denial, Eventual Romance, F/F, Falling In Love, Realization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-01-23 16:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12511376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanaskyeqc/pseuds/lanaskyeqc
Summary: This must be what crazy feels like.





	1. Rana

**_1\. Rana_ **

 

_“I don’t think we can be mates.”_

Rana wipes at the skin under her eyes, smearing the dark make-up into the hiccupping tears she’s still holding back. She barely recognises the tired figure in the mirror; her brain swims with too much booze and confusion and _Kate_.

_"I miss our friendship…”_

She tugs at the rings adorning her fingers with a harshness that recalls Kate’s brutal rebuff earlier. She wants to be sick but she’s just spent the last twenty minutes crouched over the toilet with nothing to show for it. Zeedan had offered to hold her hair – to rub soothing circles into her back and promise her everything would be alright – but she’d shrugged him off with a whimper. He soon caught her drift and retreated to the bedroom where Rana knows he’s now waiting: worrying about her and whatever’s going on in her head.

His guess was as good as hers at this point.

Carefully she slips out of her clothes, shivering as the autumn wind swirls outside. It doesn’t escape her when her fingers shake as she unhooks her bra and reaches for her pyjamas. She feels like she’s standing in somebody else’s skin – like she’s an imposter, caught in a once familiar world she now feels irreparably separated from.

She can hear Zeedan sighing next door as she struggles with the buttons on her top. The inside of her cheek feels raw from where she’s relentlessly chewed on the soft, pink flesh there. The blood is still fresh and sharp and _present_ in a way that Rana savours. When everything around her seems to be slipping between her fingers, she relishes the tangible reminder of _now_. Because soon enough she knows she’ll go backwards, falling into the memories and…

_“You make me sick.”_

Her throat constricts around another sob as she steadies her hands on the edge of the porcelain sink. She shuts her eyes and swears she can picture every colour of revulsion burning in Kate’s eyes as she glares at her: black and the palest yellow reflecting from the streetlamps mixed in with the warmest amber Rana thinks she’s ever seen. She tries to imagine the memory into something less painful but her fingers twitch as she senses the momentum heading forwards, away from the scorn and into someone else entirely.  
There’s a click as she unlocks the door and shuffles across the threshold. Zeedan is sitting under the covers, his big chocolate eyes full of earnest concern and for some reason it makes her feel a thousand times worse. The sheets are already pulled back for her to slide her small frame in with ease. His arm automatically wraps around her and she tries to trust the comfort he’s offering her, tries to allow the warmth of his touch to seep into her heart.

“Hey…” he starts, his voice soft and nervous. “Sorry for upsetting you earlier.” He pauses and Rana can feel herself stop breathing. “Are you okay?” he asks finally.

Her face scrunches up into what she hopes is a smile.

“I’m fine. Can we just go to bed?” she begs him before he can refute this obvious lie. She knows what a pathetic figure she must cut: so tiny in the vastness of the bed, face puffy with crying for reasons she simply cannot explain to him or anyone else. But she also knows Zeedan loves her so it’s no surprise when he nods gently and reaches over to snap off the light.

They shuffle down the bed and she curls into his side as he hugs her tightly. His lips graze her hair as she presses her ear against his chest. She attempts to ground herself with the steady thump of his heart beneath her, wishing herself away into somewhere she hopes can make her feel happy again.

The ticking of the clock crawls forward as Zeedan’s breathing slows and she realises he’s slipped into sleep without her. The silence creates a vacuum and Rana can feel the momentary calm scattering as her thoughts reappear and reverberate around her skull. Everything is so messy and confusing and painful and before long she’s lost in the chaos, the evening replaying in her vision like an old video tape. In the centre of it all, at the eye of the storm, waits Kate.

Zeedan doesn’t stir the whole night; Rana barely sleeps.

 

***

 

Mrs Fairport has to ask her three times what she’s doing before Rana realises she’s left the blood pressure cuff on for the whole consultation. She apologies profusely but it never touches her eyes and Mrs Fairport leaves with a curt nod that indicates she noticed.

Moira grabs her between surgeries to discuss the rota for next month and Rana wants to scream the entire time. She doesn’t know why… well, that’s not entirely true. She knows, she just doesn’t _understand_.

“Anything bothering you, Rana?” Moira asks when Rana fails to register the news that she’s been allocated her own chronic disease clinic starting in November. Rana smiles – the same smile she’s been giving Zeedan and Alya and Yasmeen when they find her moping around at home – and she expects Moira to move on.

Instead she says, “Have you had anything to eat?”

Rana glances at her apprehensively – there are still technically four minutes until lunch – but shakes her head. “Me neither,” Moira explains. “I hear Roy does a mean potato scone. How do you fancy we go together?”

Rana doesn’t have time to shut her jaw before Moira pushes her out the door.

 

 

“It’s a shame for someone with such exquisite dentition as yourself to be frowning so much,” Moira remarks as she bites into her roll with fervour. Rana sips at her tea, wincing slightly as it burns her tongue, as she stares down her barely-touched scrambled eggs.

“I’m fine,” she replies, shaking her head as the over-worn phrase slithers through her.

Moira cocks an eyebrow. “Darling, you’re more miserable than Jeremy Hunt in a hospital.”

Rana’s lips quirk upwards and she convinces herself she might even be smirking.

“Are you still having trouble with your girlfriend?”

Her whole body freezes before the familiar wave of bewilderment and sadness she’s been soaking in for weeks washes over her. For half a second there she thinks she might have forgotten about it. It makes her smile mirthlessly. She has these moments, just moments, when she escapes herself: when Zee wraps his fingers around her hand and tucks them into his pockets because they’re cold; when she’s at that sweet spot between one glass of red wine and the next and she feels like she’s floating between heaven and earth; when she first wakes in the morning and hasn’t quite remembered she’s Rana yet. Now her bones feel scorched beneath the tangled web of veins and muscle desperately trying to hold her together. Everything is so _hard_ , like there’s a piece of her missing and now she’s just broken.

Moira is waiting for her to reply and Rana knows she won’t accept the silent treatment like Zee.

“Something like that,” she mutters.

“Have you spoken to her yet?” Rana scowls and tries to block that night from her memory forever.

It doesn’t work.

“She said she doesn’t want to be mates,” she whispers making Moira hunch over her plate just to hear. Rana’s throat feels suddenly dry as she starts to tear at the skin by the edge of her nailbed.

“And what did you tell her?” Moira enquires, slurping on her earl grey.

It’s a good question. Rana knows what she said, even with all the alcohol she’d consumed. She remembers it with excruciating detail, like she’s being asked to tell a patient’s family that their loved one has died: the chill from the air fills her lungs, the crumpled sensation in her chest as she pled with Kate to forgive her reappears, the moment of torturous hope hacks into her side again when she remembers the sensation of Kate’s fingers slipping between her own.

She knows what she said, but she’s not entirely sure she knows what Kate understood. She can’t blame her; Rana is still in the process of working it all out herself, how could she expect Kate to know her better than herself?

And yet, deep down, a part of her does expect it. And it makes her mad that Kate can’t suddenly put her finger on what’s bothering Rana and tell her how to make it better. For some reason, she senses Kate has the power to do that, to make everything stop feeling so bloody awful, if she would just _do something_. And all she knows is when Kate walked away from her, that hole inside her became a gaping wound.

“I told her I’m sorry,” Rana answers and she can feel the tears as if they were freshly falling.

“And she still doesn’t want to be friends?” Rana nods as she wills her body to shrink into the seat. Moira appears to be mulling it over in her mind, like a cryptic clue for the Weatherfield gazette. Rana expects Moira is pretty good at crosswords.

“Do _you_ want to be friends?”

Rana’s head jerks up to find Moira innocently blowing on her cuppa, one eyebrow arched in anticipation of her answer.

“Of course,” Rana replies forcefully, and the strain in her voice catches her by surprise. “Why wouldn’t I?” she asks, and she waits for the universe to respond. All she can hear is her heart beating, terrified, in her chest.

“Oh, I’m not sure – it was just a thought,” Moira answers unhelpfully, her fork making a bee-line for Rana’s untouched eggs. Her eyes are so full of desire and Rana swallows as she wonders: what does she want?

“I…”

Rana opens her mouth, thinks, then shuts again. It hurts to be so uncertain about herself. It’s like her actions are breadcrumbs, winding her through a forest she can barely discern from the shadows. Nothing she does makes any sense; nothing she feels puts her at ease.

Eventually she settles for, “I want her to not hate me,” because, while not the right answer per se, at least it’s the truth. “And I wish my brain could give me a rest from thinking about her all the damn time,” she adds, a wave of relief washing over her at her sudden honesty.

She rubs at her eyes, her head dipping as she exhales heavily. When she looks back at Moira she’s watching her quizzically but Rana’s too exhausted and frustrated to even begin contemplating what’s piqued her interest this time.

“We’d best get back or Dr Cunningham will threaten to give me my flu jab again,” she sighs, standing from her seat and walking to the counter to pay. As she hands Shona her ten pound note the door jangles behind her and a familiar voice greets her ears.

Rana feels her heart stop at the sweet, light tone – the giggle in Kate’s smile as Daniel teases her about her dubious double denim fashion choices – and Rana’s veins fill with dread as she realises as soon as Kate notices her all that cheeriness and ease will disappear. Her stomach flips and next thing she knows she’s ignoring Shona’s change filled fist and hastily retreating out the door. The scent of jasmine flows straight to her brain as she dizzily stumbles onto the street and tries to make sense of her warring desires – at once rushing to escape Kate and yet simultaneously wanting nothing more than to turn back, grab Kate’s hand and tell her… _something._

When she returns to the medical centre she closes herself off in her room and hyperventilates for a few minutes. She’s grateful when Moira arrives before proceeding to go nuclear at her for her little abandonment stunt. It keeps her from imploding, at least for the next few minutes, and it allows Moira to write off the tears in her eyes as a result of her yelling.

The afternoon surgery lasts an eternity but when Zee asks her how her day went she tells him the usual story and allows him to touch her forehead with a kiss. She doesn’t mention Moira or the eggs or the disgusted scowl she glimpsed as she escaped the café. She doesn’t tell him that she wants to be happy again because, for as long as she’s known him, _Zee_ has been her happiness. She doesn’t find the courage to cry in front of him so she waits till he falls asleep and she’s left to her preying mind before allowing her emotions to emerge.

And no matter how much she might wish it, her mind never settles on anything except Kate.

 

***

 

_“You fancy Kate.”_

She hears the words like they’re a pair of hands scratching across her body, tearing at her skin to reveal the slow beating heart beneath. Imogen can barely keep herself from snarling as she says it, devouring every ounce of pleasure she can from watching Rana squirm. It makes Rana wish she had smacked her one back in the bistro all those months ago when this all started. Whatever _this_ is.

She hears herself deny it, hurling her own insults back at Imogen and whomever else will listen. It’s rare for Rana to feel self-conscious, but when Todd clearly hears Imogen’s accusation she wishes the cobbles would open beneath her and swallow her whole. It’s not just embarrassment at having a fight in the street or her neighbours having front row seats to her private life: it’s this cold, slicing fear that cuts through her like a knife slashing her aorta as she starts to wonder _maybe she’s right…_

Imogen notices, like she’s noticed everything apparently, and smirks as she storms off. It’s astonishing, really, that Imogen can walk away having just lost Kate and somehow Rana feels like the one who’s been sucker-punched. Because it’s nonsense, isn’t it? The idea that she could possibly fancy Kate is like one big joke, as daft as suggesting she was in love with Dev or Moira or Norris.

Except Kate isn’t Dev or Moira or Norris; Kate isn’t even Zeedan. Kate is just _Kate._

Sean emerges and proceeds to worry over her in his generally fumbling way. She supposes it must be because the fear she feels in her heart is just as apparent on her face, drawing her in lines of uncertainty and panic. Out of kindness he supplies her with wine to dull her senses but even the pleasant hum in her belly can’t stop her whole body from feeling like it’s being twisted up.

She thinks about the last time she was truly afraid – when she saw Bethany slip into a car with that creep Nathan – and she thinks about how naturally Kate had set her at ease. She curses herself for wanting to run to Kate for comfort now too because she simply _can’t_. It doesn’t stop her from wanting it though, and her chest aches from needing something so badly she can barely think straight.

She recalls how sick she felt watching Kate and Imogen kiss, how she loathed every second of it. What Imogen said makes sense in that horrible, gut-wrenching sort of way: like realising the lump in one of her patient’s breasts is probably cancer. Her fingers shake so dreadfully she swears she can hear her bones chatter. She shuts her eyes, hoping the darkness can banish what months of denial and hoping and praying couldn’t, but all she succeeds in accomplishing is locking her thoughts inside.

She needs to do something, anything, to pull herself back from this shuddering cliff edge. So she turns inward to the space around her heart, and searches the place she’s come to call home. A mantra emerges and she slowly repeats it in her head until it starts to soothe her:

She wants Zeedan, she loves Zeedan, and she’s convinced having his baby will make this all go away.

It works for minutes, maybe, if she’s being generous, until she walks into the bistro and sees Kate with her husband. She notices the contour of Kate’s neck, the soft way she bites her lip as she’s concentrating, the funny little wrinkle in her nose when she smiles. She notices how much she notices her, and Imogen starts to feel more like soothsayer than a harpy.

With Kate doggedly filling her senses, she drags Zeedan back to her bedroom and tries to bury her feelings in his soft, tender skin. When he kisses her neck and tries to keep her close, she presses the back of her hand against her eyes, blocking out reality as she tears apart the image of long brown hair falling against her shoulder… a taut, flat stomach pressing against hers, the taste of a soft button nose between her lips and the sensation of joy that floods her when she imagines it’s someone else that says, _“I love you”_ just as she collapses in ecstasy.

“I love you too,” she whispers back as the truth wraps its lithe fingers around her throat and chokes her.  
 


	2. Kate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's strange what desire can make foolish people do

_"I've been thinking about you a lot lately..."_

Kate fiddles with a loose thread on her pyjama top, twisting it back and forth on her finger with tedious regularity. Her head leans on the edge of the settee, her cheek resting against the cold leather as the lingering scent of Alya's slightly burned cooking swirls around her. From the corner of her eye she can see Alya and Luke chatting.

Luke's laugh is like a bark as Alya jabs him in the ribs and tells him to quit bugging her and watch the telly. He ignores her (of course) and proceeds to nuzzle into her neck. Alya yelps and wriggles like a school girl but Kate can tell she likes it. Even when she half pushes him away Kate can see the way her fingers dig into the fabric of his shirt to keep him close. It's funny, Kate thinks, that people should be so contradictory between how they feel and how they act. People like Alya, for instance.

Or people like Rana.

The truth is, Kate can't stop thinking about that kiss. It's so damn confusing. What sort of person announces plans to start a family with her sweet, totally-undeserving-of-this-shit husband and then turns around and kisses her best friend? And what sort of person agonises over such a kiss after spending the majority of her last relationship complaining that said kisser is a huge homophobe and fuck her and… _fuck,_ _this is complicated_. 

It would be an understatement to say she never once anticipated being in this situation in a million years. The closest thing to a premonition Kate can come up with was almost a year ago. She remembers last Christmas getting tipsy with Aidan in the Rovers when he'd suddenly asked her, gun to her head, which of her friends she would date. It was a stupid game, but that was sort of Aidan’s specialty, so Kate had played along. It was a joke, after all; a harmless hypothetical to pass the time. He'd picked Maria (she would laugh except she mostly just felt like screaming) and Kate, trying not to smirk as she said it, picked the irrepressibly dashing Kirk. Forever a nosey wee shite, Aidan would not be satisfied until she gave him something resembling an honest answer. So, after much deliberation and protests of genuine desire for Maria’s brother, her lips formed around two, rolling syllables: Rana. It wasn’t based on much; like being asked her favourite colour, she just _knew_.

They'd laughed and Aidan had made a typically blokey comment about the possibilities of nurse outfits that both infuriated and, she reflected guiltily, intrigued her. But that was that: the last time Kate thought about Rana as anything other than a friend. Of course, it didn’t escape her that Rana was gorgeous and funny and the kind of sweet heart that she normally fell for, but she was also her very married Muslim friend. Not only that: she was her very married Muslim friend's _wife_.

So why did she kiss her?

Without meaning to, her hand gravitates to the place behind her ear where Rana's fingers had tangled in her hair hours earlier. She couldn't believe how soft her lips had been, how snugly she had slid into her despite her obvious inebriation. Even as Kate pushed her away, her mind buzzing with how and why and _what the hell_ , she found herself missing the contact, like rolling out of bed, hands ghosting for the suddenly absent covers.

Despite herself she can still taste her, all strawberries and vodka and _Rana_. She’s like a burn scalding her skin. Every few minutes Kate can feel her fingers brushing where Rana clung to her, tongue running across her bottom lip as if there’s something stuck there. It confuses her but mostly it exasperates her because all she can think about is how bloody brief it all was and maybe it feels like Kate made a mistake by pushing her away. 

“Kate?”

Her head jerks up as Alya waves the popcorn bowl insistently in her direction. 

“Want some more?” Luke asks, and Kate thinks they know, _they fucking know_ , so she shakes her head as innocently as possible and reaches for her wine glass instead.

They're working their way through a Stranger Things re-watch before the second season airs and for the life of her Kate can't remember a single thing about the show except that she and Rana had binged the final few episodes on a rainy Friday night months ago. Still bruised by Alya and Luke’s traitorous skipping ahead, Kate had huffed and puffed until Rana took pity. Still in her uniform, she had hurried over after a busy afternoon surgery, bottle of wine in hand, to remedy the situation.

As much as Kate had tried to maintain her general sulk, the sight of Rana and her 100 watt smile as she pulled her down to the sofa had broken through and she’d spent the rest of the evening in this sort of blissful relief. Rana was good at that sort of thing – gently reshaping Kate’s mood just by being there, turning the sour sweet. Like a good mate… _right?_

She remembers cosying up on the couch together, on old tartan blanket of Luke’s draped across their laps as night transfigured into morning. She remembers how they’d missed half an episode busy sharing stories of their own nostalgia-laden childhood. She draws her hand up to cover a slow-forming smile as she thinks about how enthusiastically Rana had described an excruciating ordeal with braces, an apple and a class full of fourteen year-olds. The more Rana shared, the more Kate felt like she was there, like she was a part of it, a part of Rana’s life in a way that was different from their other friends. Rana was different, she understood. In the relatively brief time she’d known her, Rana had become her best friend, she thought: the first one she’d message for a night out, or call when she had a terrible day, or think about when she was on her own…

She remembers watching the final few scenes of the show that night, the clock above the telly ignored as it read some ungodly hour, and feeling Rana tense beside her. When she turned away from the screen she found Rana, quivering bottom lip trapped between her teeth as she wiped at freshly forming tears. Kate watched as Rana’s enormous eyes darkened and then seemed to inflate as she responded to the events on screen. It froze her to see Rana’s face, sharpened by the shadows, cut into pieces by the tears that rolled down her cheeks. She was still beautiful when she cried, Kate realised. _Not like Caz,_ she remembers thinking. Not that that was relevant.

It was unbearable though, and she didn’t hesitate to wrap her up in a hug as they laughed at how sensitive Rana could be about the fate of a fictional little girl. Rana had sort of melted into her then and Kate felt like wax being hollowed out by a naked flame. Rana smiled as Kate promised her everything would be alright and her tears vanished as delicately as they appeared. Rana hadn’t cried in front of her since.

Not until a few weeks ago, that is.  

She feels bad now - for reading the situation so terribly wrong in the first place, for hurting somebody she cared about with almost callous cruelty. But mostly for ignoring the voice that screamed inside her to _just give in_ as Rana stood there, shivering on that damp street corner with tears blazoned against her skin, begging forgiveness for committing a sin Kate couldn’t comprehend but still managed to blame her for anyway. So she walked away, hoping her footsteps would drown out the sound of Rana shattering behind her. She had been so sure that night, so fucking certain. Knowing what she does now about what Rana has presumably been battling with, confused and unsure and alone, all Kate feels when she thinks back over the past few weeks is shame and regret.

Finally cooled from all her self-righteous outrage, she can finally acknowledge the thought she’s been wrestling to the outskirts of her mind for weeks: she really misses Rana.

Which makes this whole predicament all the more arduous because it’s everything Kate can do from leaping up from the settee, running over to the Nazir’s and having a proper, uninterrupted discussion with Rana about _what in God’s name she had been thinking._ Somehow Rana and her damn lips had opened a vortex for them to slip through into a galaxy where it seemed perfectly possible to forget she was still married. But it didn’t last for long and Kate had stopped things – because it was the right thing to do, because she wasn’t going to be the latest footnote in a list of Connor family fuckups. And it makes her mad that Rana could do something so cataclysmic and somehow Kate feels like the bad guy for reminding them of the wedding ring sheathed to the finger wrapped around the nape of her neck. Because she does feel bad, she feels fucking awful, and she can’t work out if it’s because she pushed Rana away too late or too soon.

She needs to talk about this. When she was little, her dad would always sit with her and listen to her worries, wrapped up in her Little Mermaid duvet with a cup of hot chocolate to keep her sweet. Aidan told her it was something their mum used to do but Kate can't remember. It's just a feeling she has, like being warmed in the depths of winter, that comes to mind whenever Aidan mentions it. Not that she feels like telling her family about her current predicament - Connors aren't exactly reliable when it comes to matters of the extra-marital heart. 

It wasn’t hard to see Rana needed to talk about… all of this too. And there’s this almost restless dread coursing through Kate as she thinks about what Rana might tell her about how vulnerable she looked when Kate arrived in the Rovers, or about the heart-breaking uncertainty in her voice when she whispered _‘you came’_ , or about why, despite all the guilt and fear and confusion locked in Rana’s eyes, Kate couldn’t identify anything to suggest Rana regrets their kiss.

_Seize the day_ , Rana had said. So why did it feel like so much more than that? More intense, but more immoral. Aidan walking in hadn't helped. It was as though someone flipped a switch inside her and suddenly Kate’s fuse was blown. And maybe she was angry at Rana for giving her all these _feelings,_ and maybe she was mad at Aidan for ruining their family with his lack of restraint, but mostly she suspects she was angry at herself for raging against her brother when she was the one who had just kissed someone else’s wife. Or being kissed. Whatever. She knew what she meant.

_“Fuck…”_

“Huh?” Alya’s looking at her peculiarly and _shit, did she just say that out loud_? By way of an explanation she shakes her head blankly and retreats further into the couch. Alya lets it go and Kate thanks the Lord Alya is apparently as oblivious as she has been for the last few months. She drains the dregs from the wine bottle and marvels at the sudden lightness in her head.

She needs to talk about this. Not with her dad or Alya or Aidan; with Rana. She needs to figure out what’s going on; she needs to see if she can fix things before someone she cares about gets hurt; and she needs to let Rana know that she _cares_ , even if she doesn’t know exactly what she means by that.

Right now though, in this cramped apartment with her lovebird flatmates seated nearby, she doesn’t need to tell Rana that whenever she thinks about her she feels this frightful anticipation expanding in her lungs, or that her mouth keeps creeping into a smirk whenever she relives this afternoon, or that, however much she wants to deny it, she’s fairly certain that when Rana kissed her, she kissed her back.

Without much warning she makes her excuses to Alya and Luke and retreats to her darkened bedroom. There she finds the covers just as she left them, erratically crumpled and half hanging from the mattress, even as the body that crawls underneath feels irreversibly changed. Her eyes shut with a thud as she inhales sharply, the sigh that escapes between her lips full of so much trepidation and yearning: for what she feels she’s lost, but also for what, if she lets the fantasy play out for _just a moment_ , she imagines is awaiting her if she would only fall from this precipice. Her breath catches then and she realises Rana will not release her tonight, transforming into the thorn firmly lodged between her ribs and her hammering, wicked heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading once again and for the generous, kind comments you've left. It's all very encouraging and terribly sweet. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Next up: Halloween :)


	3. Rana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something wicked this way comes

“Are you going to be ready sometime this century or should I just leave without you?”

Rana doesn’t need to open the bedroom door to hear Zeedan’s eyes roll into the back of his head as he shouts from downstairs.

“I’ll be just a minute,” she calls back, a hint of impatience in her voice which is rich because this is about the seventh time she’s said those exact words in the last half hour. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how many times you say something – how much you promise or desperately wish it into reality – you still can’t make it true.

Her hands stutter as she readjusts her hood for the fiftieth time, turning this way and that, hoping she’ll eventually find an angle that brings her satisfaction. A lock of hair keeps escaping, drooping across her vision like a veil. Her hand brushes it to the side as she regards herself in the mirror.

Little Red Riding Hood. Not the most inspired choice, she must admit, but it’s simple and recognisable enough. And maybe she feels a certain kinship with someone who finds themselves lost in the woods at the hands of a threat ready to devour them.

The girl staring back at her in the mirror certainly looks terrified. She’s spent the last several days concocting excuse after excuse in fruitless attempts to avoid tonight but each lie sounded more and more obvious, catching in her throat like a sawdust. It became perfectly clear that Alya’s party would be as inevitable as Little Red falling into the clutches of the beast. With a sigh that’s part resignation, part apprehension, Rana tucks her hair behind her ear, sucks some air into her lungs, and prepares for the worst.

The problem, as seems to be the rule now, is Kate.

They haven’t spoken since Kate told her on no uncertain terms to stay away. The weeks since have felt like Rana has been drifting on the surface of a freezing lake, still afloat somehow but always only moments away from succumbing… to what, Rana isn’t sure. Most of the time she dreads it, can feel herself cracking as Zeedan and Yasmeen fuss over her. But in the depths of her stomach, like a slow growing ulcer, she can feel herself _hoping_ for it. Whatever she’s dressed as, Rana knows the haunting appetite twisting inside her isn’t the lost little girl’s, it’s the wolf’s.

She shakes her head as if to clear it as she hears Zeedan’s heavy footsteps climbing up the stairs. Her time has run out, she realises, and as much as she hates the idea of facing Zeedan’s disappointment it chills her to know he can no longer lay claim to the tremble in her heart. Blood floods her veins as she thinks of her, thinks of seeing her after so long, dancing and irrepressible and free and suddenly all she wants is to leave, to be _close_ even if it will burn, like being pressed against the pale heat of a naked flame.

Zeedan looks slightly taken aback, the chastisement he was about to unleash catching on his lips as Rana pre-emptively opens the door before he has a chance to break it down.

“Ready to go?” she asks vaguely, slipping past him as he stands agape in the doorway. He grips the cutlass at his waist to steady himself but Rana doesn’t hang around to see if he withstands her audacity. Instead she plucks her keys from the kitchen table and bounds out the door, unwilling to wait even for a second in case this bravery swelling in her breast vanishes as quickly as it appeared. Eventually she hears him chasing after her but as his stride falls into step with her own she refuses to look at him, refuses to meet the one eye not covered by an eyepatch as it probes her sceptically. She can’t risk him knowing, can’t give him the chance to peer inside her because all he would find is pain and need and love for _someone else_. And despite how confused Rana has been she knows that hurting Zeedan is a cruelty she cannot endure. Not yet at least.

The street is cold and her teeth start to chatter under her scarlet hood. A thin smile drawn with deep red lipstick spreads across her features as Zeedan takes pity and snatches her hand into the pocket of his waistcoat. It’s small and her fingers barely fit, but his skin covers what the fabric cannot and she feels her diaphragm contort at the modesty of it all. Her cheek presses against his shoulder and she senses him relax against her. It’s a reward, in a way: for putting up with her, for accepting the neurotic, distant wreck she’s become, for still wanting a family with her in spite of it all. It’s not what he deserves, but it’s what she can give him right now, so it will have to be enough.

Alya’s flat is heaving with bodies when they arrive, the room swaying like the deck of a ship. The music pounds in the way Rana likes but she can see Zeedan grimace beside her. She’s always had a hell of a time trying to encourage him out to clubs, to convince him that his attraction to her is greater than his disdain for carefree fun. It’s a testament to what she means to him that she’s succeeded so many times. But still, she’s wondered more than once if it really should be this hard.

Alya rushes over to them, the image of an undead Holly Golightly, and embraces them both warmly. Rana nods as she strains to hear her over the din, smiling in a vacant way that she hopes is convincing. All the while she desperately tries to maintain eye contact and ignore what she immediately spotted across the other side of the drinks counter: a spinning, dizzying Kate swaying around the dance floor.

She’s decked out in a surprisingly impressive Wonder Woman outfit that makes Rana feel weak: the armour folding around her taut, tanned skin as powerful as encountering a true immortal. Her movements are reckless but liberating and Rana feels her body pull towards her like being drawn into a black hole. She’s just having so much _fun_ and Rana recalls with morbid clarity how they used to rule the dancefloor together, blissfully entranced by each other’s company. Now she must be satisfied with being the distant voyeur or run the risk of surrendering to the wolf inside her. Like a soldier lost in No Man’s Land, Rana can think of nothing more heavenly than surrendering.

007 Luke claps Zeedan on the back and invites him over to the window where a bunch of the lads are nursing their liquor. Zeedan looks at her pleadingly for permission and Rana feels a pang of guilt cleave through her as she ushers him away, snatching a glass of orange juice so as not to raise suspicions of her less than honest commitment to the prospect of motherhood.

Alya chatters away to her as she positions them next to the drinks, her side pressed against the cool counter as one eye constantly remains aware of Kate. She sips quietly on her drink, wishing it was mixed with something to soothe the sting that comes when Alya gushes about the wedding. A laugh erupts behind her and she’s unable to stop herself from turning to see Kate giggling with Daniel, head rolling backwards as a smile breaks across her face like the dawn.

“I’m so glad you two are friends again,” Alya tells her and Rana feels her heart crumple. She can’t say what she wants to – that they aren’t friends, have never felt further from friends, that Rana wakes nauseated most mornings just from _missing_ her – so she offers half a smile and drops her eyes to the floor, searching it for her happiness.

“Hey…” Her eyes light up beyond her control as they rise to find Kate standing across from her and she feels like the morning finally being reunited with noon, like the incomplete hole inside her is slowly filling, Kate’s presence pouring in to her like sunlight through blinds.

Kate’s glass is conspicuously empty and her voice is wearily uncertain but her eyes meet Rana’s with that same magnetic pull from earlier and Rana can feel dreadful excitement fill her because for the first time in weeks Kate is _here_ and she didn’t realise how much that could be enough for her.

“Speak of the devil,” Alya laughs and Kate looks instantly concerned.

“Nothing bad I hope,” she murmurs, reaching for the coke and vodka bottles. Rana hears the slur in her voice, observes the clumsiness as her fingers clutch at the plastic cups. Kate has always been a cute drunk but right now she just looks nervous.

“Of course not,” Alya assures her, pouring herself a new drink. “I was just saying how nice it is you guys are back on good terms. Right Rana?”

Alya looks at her expectantly but Rana’s gaze is glued to Kate as she fumbles with the vodka bottle.

“Yeah, of course…” she mumbles, missing the way Alya’s eyes narrow as she watches their cool exchange. The more Kate won’t look at her, the more Rana’s lungs seem to fill with her. A million thoughts form and collapse in her mind, words she’s dreamt of saying for months but her mouth feels parched so all she manages is an apprehensive “Kate,” the syllable slipping between her teeth like a prayer.

Kate looks at her, vodka bottle stilled in her grip, as her eyes fill with something Rana can’t name but recognises all the same because she _feels it._ There are bodies all around them and she curses every other person here because any second she has with Kate feels precious and there’s this deep sense of intrusion that scalds her when friends and strangers look their way. It’s nobody’s business but theirs, this tangled web they’ve weaved together, but it feels like hands are snatching from every side to pull them down.

“I…”

The glass bottle slips through Kate’s fingers and shatters before either of them can move and Kate, in her inebriated state, surges into the wreckage to try to salvage things. All she manages to accomplish is slicing her hand open with a particularly sharp shard of glass; the blood bubbles up before it pours everywhere. Without hesitation Rana immediately reverts to nurse mode, forgetting just how bad an idea it is to even be near Kate never mind touch her while her head drowns in thoughts of confessional conversations and prematurely terminated kisses. Her fingers fold around Kate’s, a tea towel fashioned into a makeshift bandage is swiftly spun around the wound and she is ushering Kate towards the bathroom, whispers of protestation dying on Kate’s lips as she sees the intensity in Rana’s eyes.

Neither of them notices Zeedan rushing over to see if they are alright as they disappear behind the bathroom door.

The air is stifling as Rana sets Kate down on the edge of the bath tub, instructions about elevation and pressure spilling from her lips as she searches the cabinets for antiseptic and some real bandages. She almost doesn’t realise how hard her heart is hammering in her chest, unclear if it’s the adrenaline rush of seeing Kate’s blood seeping into the carpet or the realisation that suddenly, finally, they’re alone.

She crouches on her knees beside Kate and drapes a towel over her lap to catch any residual blood.

“I… can I?” she asks uncertainly, gesturing at the dish cloth haphazardly wrapped around Kate’s hand.

“Y-yeah, sure,” Kate replies shakily as Rana delicately grips her hand and slowly unravels the sopping towel. “Thank you,” she adds and Rana can’t help but smile.

“You’re not my first vodka related injury,” she informs her softly, looking up at her patient which is a mistake because Kate is all confusion and need and warmth. She can already predict the catastrophe awaiting them if she engages with it so she busies herself with carefully cleaning Kate’s palm with patient, deliberate strokes as her heart flies into atrial fibrillation.

“This might hurt,” she warns Kate as she douses a face cloth in the ominously green antiseptic. Kate’s brow furrows but she nods indicating for Rana to continue. She tries to be gentle but it doesn’t stop Kate from leaning forward with a hiss as she tries to contain the sting.

They’re so close, faces inches apart and it’s agony not to go further, to recreate the painfully brief memory of Rana’s lips on Kate’s. It’s stifling and Rana thrusts her hood off, unwilling to hide underneath it any longer. Kate flinches and Rana realises how hard she’s been pressing. She’s mad and Kate looks as miserable as her as they crouch by the bathtub together, engaged in something that feels dirty and illicit even though _nothing is happening_. She’s sick of feeling guilty for this unfulfilled want, sick of being unable to read Kate’s discomfort as a warning to stay away or an invitation to lean closer. She wishes she could just undo her feelings like the threads of her cape, pulling at them until her fingers are as bloody as her hood.

But there’s a resigned permanence to the cauldron of emotions bubbling inside her as if the alchemy between them is only capable of growing, not shrinking. This sense that anything could happen is palpably menacing and Rana’s not sure she has the strength to stop it from tearing her apart.

“Done,” she whispers as she closes the ends of the bandage with a piece of tape. She looks up at Kate and is pleased to find her smiling as she regards her hand curiously, clearly impressed by Rana’s handiwork.

“Have you ever thought of doing this professionally?” Kate asks with a smirk and Rana beams up at her.

“I’m not sure I’m nice enough to be a nurse,” she replies, climbing onto the lip of the bathtub beside Kate.

“You can be that nurse that is brutally honest with all her patients but secretly they love her,” Kate suggests.

“Nah, our practice already has one of those – her name’s Diane and I have no plans to encroach on her territory.”

“She sounds like fun,” Kate laughs and Rana can’t believe how wonderful the ease of all this feels.

“Plus,” Rana continues, suddenly emboldened, “I’m not sure this dressing would be up to her standards.” She gently grasps Kate’s hand and inspects it. “The workmanship is a bit sloppy if I’m honest,” she says, her fingers trailing along the edge of the fabric like a bird at the edge of a cliff.

“It looks pretty good to me,” Kate replies and they’re both suddenly engrossed in their hands, Kate’s fingers folding backwards to graze and intertwine with Rana’s, their skin melting together like honey. It feels dangerous and hypnotic, a portent of the intoxication they might indulge in if they would simply submit.

Rana feels like she’s not allowed to talk, that the words she needs to tell Kate will break this precious balance they’ve established and she’s not sure either of them will survive the fall. It’s strange though, because at the same time they feel like they’re already mid-flight, plummeting together to somewhere Rana’s never been. And she fears that ghosting her fingers across Kate’s carries a weight that could cost her the life she’s erected.

She loves Zeedan, loves his sister and his grandmother and his home. But it’s different, she barely admits to herself; it’s different to how she loves Kate.

“Kate, I…”

“Are you guys okay?” Alya yells, hammering at the bathroom door and they separate instantly. Rana stands silently, head reeling from the division and the words hanging from her lips, the _I know you’ll never be mine but..._

Kate rushes to the door and unlocks it freeing Alya to invade the serenity they had created. She looks at them, eyes full of concern, but Kate presents her mended hand as evidence of their innocent sojourn into solitude. Alya appears reassured, even as Kate presses past her, glancing back just once to show Rana she looks as sick as Rana feels.

“Zeedan has been worried about you,” Alya explains but it sounds like an accusation and immediately Rana’s shoulders fall and her body takes on a leaden quality as she trudges from the bathroom. She joins Zee and he tucks her into his side, claiming her affection in a way that feels false. Kate stays away the rest of the night but Rana never loses track of her; her proximity presses against Rana like a migraine hardening behind her eyes.

Zeedan boasts about the wedding, tells their friends how maddening it’s been waiting for the ceremony. All the while Rana tries not to scream.

“Before our nikah, I… I had some doubts,” he admits guiltily and Rana scrutinises his warm, brown eyes for signs that he’s finally realised what’s had her so twisted up inside. But he continues obliviously and Rana can’t tell if she’s relieved or disappointed.

“My gran came and talked some sense into me,” he continues. “She told me some people are worth taking risks for.” He leans over and presses a kiss to her temple that sends shivers through her. “That was the best advice I’ve ever had,” he announces quietly looking genuinely content and Rana can’t bear the restlessness that builds inside her, the flash of Kate that comes to her as he speaks, the desire to run from the room that swells up until she feels ready to burst.

“Let’s go home,” she whispers to him with a strained smile, hoping it comes across as a promise of commitment rather than a request for escape. He acquiesces easily and they bid farewell to their friends. Zee waves over at Kate who has crawled into a corner with Daniel looking almost as miserable as Rana. She offers a half-hearted smile that breaks Rana’s heart as they depart.

Zeedan takes her hand as they walk home, the air twice as bitter as when they arrived. Only this time, Rana can take no comfort in his warmth, cannot wrench her thoughts from how much she wishes it was Kate’s hand wrapped around her and not Zee’s, cannot crush the delight such thoughts fill her with even as her reality grows more and more untenable.

“I meant it, you know,” Zeedan interrupts, looking straight into the darkness ahead of them as she glances up at him.

“What?” she asks.

“All that stuff I said about our nikah. I was so wrapped up in what my grandfather had done, I couldn’t see how much I… I hurt you,” he reveals solemnly, his brow so strong and resolute and certain. “But we’re here now, so I just wanted to say thank you for loving an idiot like me,” he adds, a smile piercing his severe exterior as he finally looks down at her, warm and kind and _happy_.

She waits behind him, shadows covering her from every side as he fumbles for his keys. She can’t stand it, can’t take these lies and truths that prick at her, tearing her apart from the inside as she tries to protect him. Because she remembers how much she needed him, how different he was to all the other men she’d trusted before, and she remembers how it had wounded her when he’d called that need into doubt.

He steps into the house without her as the chill swirls around her. She remembers how Sharif had destroyed his belief in people, had threatened to destroy his belief in her. But she can’t stop it, not anymore.

All she can do is follow him inside, leaving her honesty on the doorstep. And she must continue to deceive him with a love that is running out, she can feel it, like sand trickling to the bottom of an hour glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thank you again for reading and for leaving such lovely comments. Looks like we don't have long till more Kana goodness so hopefully this will whet your appetite until then. Until next time!


	4. Kate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Send up our sighs, mourning and weeping, in this vale of tears

  
Rana’s getting married; Kate’s getting drunk.

  
She’s trying to burn away the passion and fear and insecure certainty that none of this is fair, that kissing Rana yesterday wasn’t the biggest mistake yet. Because now she can’t deny it, can’t pretend she didn’t beg Rana with fragile, shaking breaths to stop throwing her around like a ragdoll, can’t blur out the memory of Rana, eyes painted like the beautiful bride she is, as she gives Kate a chance to break Zeedan’s life apart by binding the two of them together. And somehow she feels like she’s managed to ruin everything anyway because this scratching, relentless anguish making its way up between her ribs is suffocating and Rana… _Rana_ … Rana’s still getting married.

  
Sophie comes by with grapes and compassion for pain she thinks is the consequence of some dodgy ethanol/antibiotic combination. She helps Kate laugh and pretend for long enough that Kate convinces herself this is what she wants: uncomplicated friendship and sworn separation from confused straight girls no matter how bright or beautiful or special they might be.

  
Sophie leaves to find nourishment in the shape of something other than red wine and Kate forgets it all. Forgets the moral high ground, forgets about not giving in, forgets that it’s Rana who alerted them both to the fact that there’s _something there_ they can’t un-see. Her fingers dial the number before she can stop them, her lips form the words without her permission like her heart has a sentience all of its own, and she hopes her voice can cut through the lies – a beacon of honesty guiding Rana back to her.

  
_“I love you.”_

  
It’s not a revelation. It feels like it’s been there for a while, forming slowly like roots tunnelling through her. She’s had weeks to think on it, really consider it and no matter how many different ways she looks at it, the answer is always the same.

  
_I love you_.

  
It’s a prayer: a confession for the celestial guiding her towards the unbearably inevitable. She wonders what Rana’s face might look like if she could hear her, what she might say in return. Her stomach lurches even imagining it, like the reality will be so overwhelming its seeped into her fantasy to prepare her. She’s opened herself up, made an incision somewhere between her breast bone and one of her ribs (Rana could tell her which one), all she needs is Rana to accept it and she knows she’ll feel whole.

  
An hour or two later, when she’s alerted to the sound of cars arriving on the street, voices happy and unambiguously celebratory, Sophie texts her to describe just how radiant Rana is in her dress.

  
Kate stills, hears something shatter, then crumbles.

 

 

  
She’s not sure how, but the morning after is worse. It’s brighter and her head aches like she’s trapped inside a storm. The booze that had numbed her has dried her from the inside and her mouth tastes like ash.

  
And Rana – torn, miserable, married Rana – is like a tide constantly ebbing into Kate’s mind, filling her vision from the peripheries until she blinds her.

  
So much so that she practically kills Robert and there’s no one else to blame, no one to confide in because this is such a fucking mess. Rana tends to her like she’s just another patient but there’s a moment, fleeting and unobserved, where their eyes meet and the hope that had been snuffed out with the authority of a ring suddenly sparks in the smir. It’s just the two of them and Kate feels her body float forwards as something deep, deep inside tugs her into Rana’s orbit. _This is how it could be,_ she thinks _, if we would only just let it._

  
But then it disappears and Rana evaporates with it as she retreats to her husband’s side. Kate wishes she could undo it all, run her fingers down the seams of her past and tear them out, extirpating this love she doesn’t want but seems to need as much as her body needs warmth. Whenever Rana is around, all she feels is the burn.

  
Her dad calls her to see if she’s alright and she doesn’t have the energy to trust him, to offload the reason she nearly extinguished something precious today. So she promises him she’s fine, that she’ll drop by later and the lying makes her feel closer to Rana than ever before. She smiles into the receiver but it feels like a snarl.

  
Did she mean any of it? Does she even have the first idea who Rana is? Which part is real – the part of her that snuggles into Zeedan and unsmilingly pledges her life to him or the part that sits so close to Kate, tears streaming down her face as she buckles under the prospect _that this can’t happen_?

  
_Unless she…_

  
Kate isn’t sure which Rana she wants to be real. As much as this moment now is torturous for her she thinks believing Rana could be in the same, searing pain is more than she can bear. When did that happen? When did Rana become so important that she could lie to everyone she loves without blinking an eye? When did Rana become the first thing she thinks about in the morning and the last thing plaguing her mind before sleep finally descends? When did Rana stop sounding like a name and start feeling like a prayer?

  
It saddens her, but she does know Rana. She knows her as well as she knows herself at times because she _feels it_ , feels what Rana feels when they’re together for even an instant: feels her mouth dry and her skin tingle and her heart beat so fast she thinks it might explode. It doesn’t change things, doesn’t make anything better, but it convinces her that even if her heart may be breaking, at least it’s breaking for something true.

  
Michelle sends her away from the hospital with tired forgiveness and it makes her want to cry because she doesn’t want to be forgiven, doesn’t want this torment lingering all over her to be ignored. She wants someone to realise without having to choke on the words – that Rana is in love with her and it feels like its killing her because maybe, _maybe_ , Kate’s realised she loves her back and it’s too fucking late.

  
The air is heavy with that oppressive November dampness as she wanders the streets, head a million miles away as always. Her feet tread on, taking her nowhere in particular as her thoughts circle around Rana. She can’t take the understanding and the sympathy she recalls from everyone at the Nazir’s as they watched her pathetic behaviour – Michelle, Alya, Sophie… It makes her sick. Only Rana looked at her to share in the panic, the blame and the regret, her eyes filling until they looked ready to burst as her mouth hardened to a line, a barricade, from Kate and everyone else.

  
Kate wants to scream, wants Rana to see what she’s doing to her, to grab her by the lapels of her stupid feather jacket and shake her till her the fragments of her heart have been cast at their feet. But as soon as the thought forms it disintegrates because she knows if Rana were to walk around the corner right now all Kate would ask of her would be to love her until this, _any of this_ , feels better.

  
Her footsteps slow as she realises where she is: at the bottom of the old stone steps, uneven and pale, leading into St. Peter’s church.

  
It must be nearly ten years since she’d stepped inside a chapel, and the last time was when her cousin Paul died. She’d been raised Catholic, her and Aiden both had, but her lifestyle was never going to be accepted by the church, she understood that very early on. Still, even a lapsed Catholic still carries that past with them, at the very least she did. Her mum’s rosary beads have a perpetual home wrapped in a cloth bag in the top drawer of her bedside table. And Catholic Guilt, well, that never really goes away.

  
She’s not sure what makes her do it, but for the first time in a decade Kate presses her palm against the heavy wooden door, pushes it open and steps inside the church.

  
It’s just as she remembers it: the pews, the organ, even the scaffolding over by the statue of St. Joseph seem unchanged. Her movements are hesitant as she shuffles up the aisle, slowly making her way closer to the enormous, towering crucifix hanging by the altar. Muscle memory kicks in as she clumsily genuflects, slipping into an aisle before unfolding the kneelers quickly. A second later her body has collapsed and she’s hunched over, her hands clasped tightly as her head rests on the bench, her lips forming the words to prayers she thought she’d forgotten.

  
She’s not sure what she’s doing, but she needs to get this out of her. It’s like she’s wringing out her heart, worrying away at the stain Rana has made there, all deep and evasive and _everywhere_ , until her hands are blistered and bloody.

  
“Are you okay there?”

  
Her head snaps up like a criminal as a figure emerges from the sacristy, the crack of a walking stick announcing his every step as he comes towards her. One of the priests as old and rickety as the building draws nearer, little wisps of white hair floating from his head like antennae. She thinks she recognises him, that if she could erase the lines carved into his ancient face she could place him at her confirmation or first communion.

  
She wipes at her tears and tries to smile for his benefit, although she’s unconvinced his eyes, magnified by a pair of dated spectacles, can even make her out in the dim lighting.

  
“I’m fine,” she lies.

  
He continues his trundle forwards and she feels her body stiffen like a balloon stretching just before it explodes. He’s so stooped and small he doesn’t need to bend to look at her from her kneeling position. He examines her like a schoolmaster and she feels exposed. All she can hear is the pitter-patter of raindrops outside and the priest’s laboured breathing.

  
“Mind if I join you?” he asks, his voice quiet and gravelly. She shakes her head and shuffles over, watching intently as he clambers in beside her, his vestments flapping down to his ankles as he faces her.

  
“What’s your name?” he asks.

  
“Kate.”

  
“Hello, Kate. I’m Father Michael,” he announces and she’s more certain than ever that these arthritic hands are the first to ever offer her the host. She doesn’t want him to know, doesn’t want him to have that knowledge of her. She likes him being a stranger, likes knowing more about him than he does about her. It makes her feel less alone.

  
“Are you sure you’re alright Kate?” he asks, looking her dead in the eye.

  
“I’m fine,” she replies then bursts into tears.

  
The kindness of strangers can be ruinous.

  
He doesn’t try to console her physically, doesn’t wrap an arm around her shoulders as she drops her face into her palms and lets it all out. He just gives her time, resting his hands on the back of the pew ahead of them as if to keep himself steady.

  
As she breaks she thinks about Rana and all the times she’s been forced to watch her cry these past few months. She thinks about how miserable they’ve been making each other for weeks and how she senses in her bones that Rana is as much her panacea as her poison. She think maybe she can make Rana happy but everything is just so fucked up because instead of running straight to the person she wants - the person she loves more than she thought was possible - the only solace she can turn to is this lonely priest in an empty chapel that would condemn her feelings if she gave him half a chance.

  
She’s one to talk about judging people. She had acted so superior with Aiden and Maria, even her dad when they first arrived on these wretched cobbles. She didn’t want to be superior anymore; she wanted to join them in the dark, to slip inside and never return. Because down there, hidden amongst the grot and the grime, was Rana.

  
It’s so different from all her other relationships. Caz had been all fire and fear, like standing at the edge of a bridge and knowing she was never going to jump off but delighted by the thought that she _could_. Imogen was a fling that outlasted her welcome. And the girls before, they felt as incosequential as stones on the seabed when Rana was the ocean: vast and treacherous and consuming.

  
Could she even call this a relationship? Two stollen kisses and surreptitious confessions hardly amount to real commitment. And yet she felt tied to Rana, like a flame dancing in the wind, clinging to the mere moments when the light was bright enough to keep them both warm. Rana had laid claim to a part of her she didn’t realise was missing and she feels like she’s dedicated herself to exploring every last pore of Rana in search of it.

  
But Rana belongs to someone else and its tearing Kate apart.

  
It’s unclear how much time passes but eventually she calms enough to show the priest her face again. She thinks what a wreck she must look and she’s glad no one but Father Michael is here to see her. She couldn’t take it if Rana was here she admits vainly. Everytime she’s had to watch Rana cry, she’s somehow stayed so unbearably beautiful, as if the sadness enhanced her like the light of the moon striking a crystal.

  
She chances a glance over at Father Michael and she finds him half watching her from the corner of his eye. He doesn’t say anything, merely gestures with a nod to inform her that, if she wants to, he’s ready to listen.

  
“I...” she begins and it strikes her there are so many points in this story she could start with, so many awful threads hanging that could, with the slightest tug, bring the whole tapestry down.

  
“I could’ve killed someone today,” she says shakily, waiting to gauge his reaction. His eyes widen imperceptibly then soften.

  
“Go on.”

  
“I... was driving my car but I wasn’t paying attention... I hit someone.”

  
“Hmmmm...”

  
“I’m not sure why I’m telling you any of this,” she shakes her head. “You’re not going to like it.”

  
“Oh?” he asks, finally sounding intrigued. “Why not?”

  
A flint goes off inside her and she feels her stomach boil.

  
“Because your lot generally take issue with people like me.” He just looks at her.

  
“Meaning?”

  
“Lesbians.” She sneers as she says it and it feels amazing.

  
His big bushy eyebrows rise and fall like branches of a tree. “I don’t think you’re here because you want to talk about being a lesbian,” he answers and she can hear the gratification of an argument slipping away.

  
“So you’re fine with me sleeping with women, father?” she inquires cruelly but the bite is gone.

  
“Tell me why you were distracted,” he replies calmly.

  
“What?”

  
“This morning when you almost killed someone - tell me what distracted you?”

  
She doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t understand how this priest can conjure up an apparition of Rana so clearly it makes Kate freeze.

  
“Isn’t that why you’re here?” he asks, looking at her so surely it makes her sick with envy.

  
“I’m here because I want to feel better,” she answers honestly. As she says it her fingers start to shake and she has to clasp them shut, like a barbed wire fence, to keep them still.

  
“About what?”

  
“I...” she bites her lip, banishes the tears ready to fall from her eyes. He waits.

  
“ _I’m in love..._ with... someone I can’t be with.”

  
Reality hits her like a skyscraper crashing down upon her. Her voice sounds so small in her ears, so lost and far away.

  
“Why not?”

  
“She’s muslim and... _married_.”

  
She stays strong somehow even as yesterday repeats in her mind like headache.

  
_But in the morning I’ll be sober, and you’ll still be married_.

  
Even with the drunken haze blurring the memory, she remembers how frightened Rana had looked then - of Alya hearing, of Kate reaching out and cracking the glacier shell erected around her, of her own tremulous heart exposing her regret - immediate and inescapable.

  
“What’s her name?” he asks gently, sensing they are at the precipice.

  
“ _Rana_ ,” she answers, always answers, and her defences break.

  
A hand reaches up to cover her lips, holding back the forces waiting to escape from inside her. It feels real and unredactable, as binding as the ring on Rana’s finger.

  
“It’s all such a mess,” she professes, hissing breaths climbing up her windpipe. The priest doesn’t deny it, only seems to examine his spectacles as if the answers are hidden there.

  
“This seems like a bit of a difficult one,” Father Michael tells her eventually. She laughs, short and sharp but the bitterness she was expecting is strangely absent. “And if Rana is anything like you, she must be deeply unhappy.”

  
Kate nods her head bleakly, wiping at her nose.

  
“I think this seems like one for Our Lady, don’t you?” he suggests gently. Kate can only watch him silently. “She had it so easy sometimes,” he explains. “It feels as though she always knew which path was the right one; there never seemed to be doubt in her mind.”

  
Kate casts her eye towards the statue of Mary, the flickering candles sweeping at her feet. In the wavering light, she stands tall and perfect, unmoved by the trauma around her.

  
“Shall we pray together?” Father Michael offers, a tiny, gentle smile stretching across his thin lips.

  
“I’m not sure I remember the words,” Kate replies cautiously.

  
“We’ll take it slowly,” he promises. “A truth like that, however much time has passed, never leaves you. It’s carved into your bones like the seams on your clothes. As soon as we begin, you’ll feel it, as real as touching this,” he explains, retrieving a string of rosary beads from his pockets and carefully handing them to Kate. “You’ll know what’s right, what to do from somewhere deep inside yourself. You just need to close your eyes and listen. However lonely or desperate you feel, the answer will be there, hiding in plain sight.”

  
Kate watches him, uncertain and fearful but unbearably eager to believe. He must sense it because his pursed lips stretch out into a grin.

  
“Now then, shall we?”

  
She closes her eyes, clears her mind and searches for that place, bound up tightly in the pit of her stomach where she allows herself for the briefest of moments to believe in something. And hope emerges, violent and fleeting and cruel, pulsing in her palm like the wragged beats of Rana’s heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas all! Many apologies for the delay in posting this cheerful chapter haha. Hopefully the canon has kept you all going and it’s not long until Kana are back on our screens in the New Year. Until next time :)


	5. Kana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good things come to those who wait.

_“Because I want to be with you, and that... that I love you.”_

  
First there’s silence, cold and sticky, as Rana watches Kate in disbelief. Never in any of her countless visions of the future (a lot of _I’m sorry_ , and _you don’t have to say anything_ , the occasional, hopeful _maybe someday_ ) has she dared to imagine this. Yet here she is living the one what if where Kate is looking at her, resolute brown eyes shining like stars, and expressing with deep, easy affection what Rana has been too terrified to admit for months.

  
_I love you._

  
She has to confirm it, as if the curl on Kate’s lips and the soft sincerity crackling in her voice aren’t enough. She needs the reassuring nod, the tilt of her head that promises _yes, of course_. For a moment Rana forgets to breathe, forgets to smile because it’s too implausible and somehow it feels too real as if any sudden movement might extinguish the moment forever. Like a flash of lightning: gone before she can even curl her tongue around to name it.

  
In her stillness a tear escapes, poised between anguish and delight, and tracks down Rana’s cheek, forging the banks of the rubicon she’s about to cross. On one side she can feel the crush of her parents, snapping at her throat like sharks for the way she does her hair or the cut of her dress or the number of her boyfriends. On the other side, patient and waiting like the pale heat of a rising sun is this girl sitting next to her - strong and certain and _her’s_ if Rana is only brave enough to accept her.

  
The tear falls and suddenly the tethers holding Rana in place break, freeing her till she feels weightless enough to lean into the pull of Kate’s inescapable gravity.

  
Next there’s kissing. Quite a lot of it, actually. It begins slowly, tenderly, containing all the precious reverence of a first kiss even if technically this is their third. Her fingers tangle naturally in Kate’s hair, her palm cupping her head with devastating ease. Gone is the tension from earlier; the indignation and distrust and disclosures scatter to the wind like leaves. Against her, Kate feels so pliant Rana thinks she could melt her. Every time their lips come together in deliberate, drawn out meetings, Rana can’t quite understand how anything on earth could be so soft. For a while she’s satisfied simply to be dazzled in it, in the Kateness of it all, like an antipidean left dumbstruck by snow.

  
It doesn’t take long for the urgency that so coloured their earlier kisses to re-emerge between them. As soon as Kate finds her waist and tugs Rana knows resistance is futile. Her fingers spiral around Kate’s bicep to find it dangerously strong and all Rana can think is, _“Bloody hell, you’re fit...”_

  
“What was that?” Kate asks, her words muffled by the intense need to stay connected to Rana’s and somebody shoot her did she _say that out loud_?

  
The mortification fizzles before it can spark though because she can taste the smirk on Kate’s lips and suddenly Kate’s awe inspiring arms are pulling her closer, tighter, till Rana’s convinced the space between their bodies has vanished entirley. Rana, for her part, finds the mere suggestion of what Kate has to offer far too enticing to stop there and soon enough her hands are exploring Kate like a map, making mental notes of the ripple in her back or the tautness of her thighs or _fuck, those abs..._

  
In the past, Rana had been known to enjoy the lengthy preamble before sex. She likes sleeping with people, likes the way it makes her body feel, how it seems to clear her head. But where previously it felt like a sport (a really, _really_ pleasurable sport) now she’s caught off guard by how instantaneously different it is with Kate. It’s as though she’s seeking something beyond carnal satisfaction, as if when she touches Kate she wants to become completely lost in _her_ instead of the ecstasy she anticipates. The synchronicity of their movements - the way they take turns cradling the other’s face or pull their lips apart just to crash together in waves - it all feels terribly like she belongs to her and she wants Kate to know that means every last piece: mind, body and soul.

  
It’s hard to express that to Kate with all these layers of clothes in the way Rana laments stubbornly. This really isn’t the type of place she thought could give rise to such a carnival of emotions - the messy front seats of a rusty old van with _Speedaal_ scrawled on its side. If she weren’t so blindly in love and infatuated with the realisation that _God, this is really happening_ , she might even admit it falls several storeys short of romantic or practical.

  
So when Kate tries to pull her onto her lap to rectify the reappearing distance between them and Rana nearly gives herself a concussion as her head thuds against the rearview mirror she doesn’t hesitate to suggest a change of scenery.

  
“The back. Now,” she adds before Kate can interrupt with a trademark “what?”. Her voice comes out wet and deep and she can see from Kate’s lidded eyes that she doesn’t need more convincing.

  
If the romance is still absent, then at least the back provides much needed space for them to press even closer together. Rana tugs Kate up as her free hand slams the door behind them. Even in the dark Kate’s eyes burn like suns and they find each other as accurately as before. There’s a reckless momentum growing that Rana barely has time to acknowledge, too busy removing Kate’s blouse in record time and grinning like a teenager as Kate fumbles to keep up. For an instant it feels like a competition except they’re both winning.

  
Not to be outdone, Kate grips her waist as Rana returns to the glory of her sculpted neck with both her hands and lips. A little gasp escapes as Kate lifts her up, fervently, forcefully, and places her on the counter top positioning herself between Rana’s very open legs.

  
They look at each other then, a tacit understanding that if they want to turn back this is their last chance. Kate’s fingers ghost around her thighs as Rana threads a hair behind her ear. She looks so beautiful, she thinks: her lips swollen, breathing ragged, little beads of sweat glistening on her temple like dew.

  
“Do you want me to...?” Kate asks hesitantly and Rana can hardly bear the vulnerability she hears because right now there’s no place she’d rather be than in the back of this broken down van, stripped of her defences with Kate Connor.

  
She assures her with a kiss, long and languished, that, yes, she most definitely wants her to, and the smile Kate gives her when they separate is equal parts sincerity and seduction. When Kate’s hands run teasing laps along the waistband of her trousers, tempting the skin there but never daring further, Rana lets loose a, _“babe, please...”_ that drips like honey onto Kate’s ears. After that, Kate’s happy to oblige.

  
Rana never stands a chance.

 

  
***

 

 

She’s filing her nails in the bathroom when her phone buzzes.

  
_“On my way x”_

  
It sends her into a frenzy, as if the message contained more than three harmless little words. It’s the kiss: the superficially innocuous addition that’s completely ruinous. She’s not sure which of them started that particular ritual and she can’t even go back and check having hastily deleted all record of their conversations as if they were solicitous letters in a gothic romance. Vanished are the innocent _‘how are you? x’s_ and _‘what are you up to? x’s_ , too tangled up alongside the far guiltier _‘you’re all I can think about x’s_ and _‘I can’t wait to pick up where we left off x’s_ for Rana to feel comfortable. It’s the in between moments that get her, grab her by the throat and choke her with guilt. Whenever she’s with Kate, even if they’re both careful to appear oblivious to one another, it’s all she can do not to be completely enthralled to her; like when she closes her eyes to the sun but the orange haze lingers, always lingers, like a scar, permanent, on the inside of her heart.

  
The anticipation is unnerving and unfamiliar to her, too much like a replay of her secondary days when her hormones rendered her incapable of maintaining her composure around boys she liked. By the time she was in uni she had perfected her reputation as a man-eater - notorious for driving guys crazy while she remained immovably cool. Alya and her friends used to chastise her, accuse her of borderline cruelty even as their eyes glinted green but to Rana it felt perfectly natural. Now, it’s a whole different story.

  
Now, she’s a mess.

  
The moment Kate steps into the house, cleaned up from her earlier workout but somehow still teeming with the raw energy it affords her, Rana’s whole body feels like jelly. Her thoughts keep ricocheting around so quickly she has no time to form cohesive sentences and so instead of her traditional flirtation she offers Kate a drink, gesturing to the kettle as if they’re ladies at luncheon. She mentally face palms and wishes the Nazirs had something a little harder lying around.

  
Kate senses her nervousness, it buzzes off her like a radio signal, and chases gently after her as Rana subconsciously begins to retreat. Kate’s finger slide between her’s, closing like a latch, and suddenly Kate is there, inches from her, and Rana hasn’t the faintest idea what to do.

  
She tells her as much, enormous smile plastered over her face because as far as the uncertainty is new for her (and strange) it’s yet another example of how Kate is different, how Rana’s feelings for her defy comparison to anything she’s experienced before. Kate smirks, teases her with obvious delight and Rana finds the sight of her lips mesmeric, as if Kate just being there is enough to enchant her.

  
The eagerness that swells in her breast is met by Kate’s impetuous kiss and the uncertainty falls away like a curtain because _this_ Rana remembers how to do. It’s frantic and gripping almost instantly. Kate’s hands settle into place, caressing her cheek as a finger strokes Rana’s ear and the contact is at once too much and not enough. Rana clings to her, pulling her closer and Kate keeps stroking her ear, louder and louder and _shit, is that the door?_

  
They separate and Rana sees stars, feeling the absence of Kate like a chill in her spine. Zeedan crashes through the door, flinging them apart with his intrusion. Rana is cogniscent enough to recognise pain on his features and cannot ignore the tug in her heart that draws her to his side as he frowns.

  
The room cools with their separation and even as she tries to comfort her husband she feels herself being torn away, back towards the sheepish figure hastily making excuses to remove herself from this disaster. The door closes and Rana feels a hitch in her stomach as the room darkens and light vanishes from sight. She sits with Zee, allows him to find solace in her even as she fails to feel it, to feel anything except the dusky sensation of his hands on her like sandpaper. It’s not his fault, she reminds herself as the knot inside herself tightens.

  
It’s not his fault that she’s fallen for someone else. It’s not his fault that however hard he may try whenever they’re together all Rana wants is to be somewhere else, apart. It’s not his fault that Rana knows now beyond a doubt that while she loves him (truly, honestly) she has never been _in love_ with him and the realisation is eating her up from the inside like a parasite.

  
The dread of suspicion drowns her when she is with him now. As he hugs her or strokes her hair she wonders if he can sense the cloud of Kate that gathers around her. It defies belief really that she should be so attuned to Kate’s scent, her lingering taste and constant, constant hold on Rana’s mind when Zeedan remains completely oblivious.

  
Even her behaviour, so calculated and guarded nowadays, feels like a siren announcing her guilt with him. He had been so grumpy the morning after his wedding ( _their_ wedding, she reminds herself with disloyal regret) and had taken it out mostly on Kate when they met in the bistro. Kate had assumed it was related to her drunken stupor the night before which, to be fair, was partly accurate. But Rana, already so conflicted mere hours after vowing herself to this man for eternity, had spurred his advances that evening, too locked up in the confusion and crying and Kate the evening had wrought upon her. So Zeedan had been denied his husbandly honour of claiming her, even if it was more symbolic than anything else, and Rana had never felt so relieved to be separated from the man she was supposed to love.

  
She kisses his temple as he whines about Robert and the bistro and the ingratitude of it all, clasping her hand as if it’s a rubber dinghy keeping him afloat. He doesn’t realise, doesn’t see - the Rana he clings to is a shadow, disappearing from him like breath on a mirror. In her place is a figure eerily similar to the last but subtly different: more tense, more frightened, more in love. The trouble is, just not with him.

 

 

***

 

  
“Are you okay?” Kate asks breathlessly, pulling Rana into the ginnel as the sound of smashing bottles rings between them. Her hands work restlessly against her, smoothing down Rana’s hair, her eyes darting about frantically as she checks for signs that her lover has come to harm. It makes Rana’s heart swell like the banks of a river as Kate drowns her in attention even as her mind whirrs with slow growing panic, as insidious as a tumour, that once more they’ve been exposed.

  
“I’m fine,” she assures Kate, begging her voice to remain calm and somehow the smile she forms doesn’t feel forced. Kate does that to her, she realises - gives her something to smile about.

  
“What about you?” Rana returns seriously, turning Kate’s bare arms this way and that in search of glass shards and scrapes. It brings them close, too close, so that Kate’s nose is nuzzling against her temple and Rana’s lips, pursed in a determined line, hover dangerously near to her pulse point. The proximity stuns her even as the cold bites around them. She imagines Kate must feel it too because she somehow manages to wriggle out of Rana’s examination to slip her arms around her waist and pull them together.

  
“You need to get home before I phone the police,” she whispers against Rana’s ear and the panic grows. She feels herself tug at Kate’s top, pressing her forehead against her collarbone to keep the fear from escaping.

  
“You promise you won’t mention me?” she asks, her voice small and selfish and the subtle stiffening in Kate’s body makes her feel awful. It’s beyond comprehension honestly that Kate can stand as this beacon of bravery as Rana’s body practically convulses with cowardice. She thinks that being close, by clinging to the rough fabric of Kate’s shirt and inhaling her perfume like air, she can absorb some of that strength. Kate is always so sure, so clear in herself and her love for her, it’s part of what attracts Rana so powerfully to her. When all Rana can see is her world crashing down around them, Kate shoulders the fall.

  
“Of course,” Kate replies stiffly even as her hand caressess the nape of Rana’s neck and the selfishness Rana feels is suddenly all the more stifling. She wants so dreadfully to be rid of it, of the fear and the panic, but it surrounds her constantly, filling her head with noise. Only Kate, in the moments they can snatch alone together, manages to calm her. But it never disappears, not completely.

  
“Thank you,” she offers weakly, meeting Kate’s eyes and flinching at the lack of blame she sees in them. She kisses her then, softly like they’re praying, and she wonders how she can be enough when Kate means so much to her. She feels like a stone, lonely and submerged in this ocean that surrounds her, each drowning wave more powerful than the last. But Kate is pulling away, ushering her back to the family she loves but can no longer desire and Rana curses her eyes for being unable to contain her, this iridescent, unending woman withdrawing from her.

  
Rana holds firm, terrified of the impending separation and the looming reality that waits for her just a few doors down. “It’ll be alright,” Kate promises softly as she drifts into the shadows. Rana clings, tighter than before but still her fingers slip and she is left holding nothing but air.

  
Kate is gone and Rana isn’t sure when that went from disappointing to unbearable.

 

 

***

 

 

_“Because if you do...”_

  
Rana is distraught. She paces around the flat like a caged lioness, back and forth, back and forth, the worry line crinkling between her eyes growing more and more anxious with each lap.

  
“This is such a mess...” she mutters, a hand dragging through her hair.

  
Waiting in the spot where Michelle left them both dumbfounded mere minutes earlier, Kate watches Rana circle her. Seeing Rana so wound up, so trapped, makes her body tense up, the stress mounting between her shoulder blades like a knife.

  
“What are we going to do?” Rana asks helplessly and it’s almost as if she’s here alone, as though Kate is nowhere to be found because she suddenly looks so desperate and lonely and her eyes, normally so vital and full, contain within them a distance that Kate cannot close. She’s gone to that place, that far-away shadow curled into the back of Rana’s mind where everything seems impossible and wretched, where she feels more powerless than ever.

  
“Calm down,” Kate suggests rather obviously, her fingers reaching tentatively for Rana’s passing shoulder. The way Rana withdraws from her, she knows she’s said something stupid.

  
“Calm down? Michelle knows, Kate!” Rana reiterates, her voice all sorts of shrill. “Luke knows and Michelle knows and God knows how long until Zeedan finds out...” She scowls and it bathes her face in an unflattering light, lathered in doubt and distrust of the people guarding her deepest secret.

  
Her bottom lip quivers like she’s about to snap and Kate can’t take it anymore, can’t bear seeing Rana in such turmoil. Pushing from the counter, her hands glance against Rana’s wrist, catch and tighten till she’s holding Rana against her.

  
“Come here,” she beckons gently. _“Come here,”_ she repeats even as Rana shakes her head, tears gathering like diamonds. It only takes a moment after Kate dips her head to meet Rana’s eyes for her to go weak, for the resistance crying out from months of repression and guilt to melt into hesitant need for something she only just realised she could have.

  
“What are we going to do?” she asks once more but the accusatory tone is gone, replaced by genuine uncertainty that breaks Kate’s heart.

  
_“We,”_ she begins shakily, begging her voice to portray the strength Rana so desperately needs from her. “We are going to get through this together. I promise.” She holds Rana’s face in her hands as Rana tangles her fingers in the hem of her top, their foreheads pressed together.

  
“How?” Rana asks, searching Kate for the answers she cannot find within herself and Kate cannot carry the burden alone. It’s too much, this burning she holds in the palm of her hands, as powerfully as if she was holding Rana’s tormented bleeding heart between her fingers. She’s never felt this way before (about _anything_ ) and it feels so much like she and Rana are discovering something new, something amazing, whenever they’re together. But sometimes it feels terrible too, like the shadow the sun casts when it strikes a mountain.

  
“Kate?” Rana presses but her voice is small and her nose has settled snugly against Kate’s cheek in a way that makes it hard to concentrate.

  
“We...” she starts breathlessly but Rana’s scent is growing intoxicating and her lips are resting by the corner of Kate’s mouth just begging to be kissed.

  
A moment flashes, holding them in place as Rana looks at her with those helpless, enormous eyes and then it shatters as Kate leans in, entangling them. Rana’s hesitancy morphs into eagerness as Kate scorches her lips with kisses. They meet like fire and oil, sparking and igniting with every touch. Kate grabs Rana’s face, the momentum drawing them backwards as Rana presses into Kate’s torso. She’s so dazed, so caught up in Kate and the things she’s doing to her with her hands and lips and tongue that it takes her a while to realise where they are.

  
“Kate,” she murmurs, her cheeks blushed red like a drop of paint mixing with water and Kate cannot begin to describe how turned on the sight of breathless Rana makes her. She reaches in again, bruising her lips as she stretches back against her bedroom door but once more Rana separates them.

  
“Zee... I told him I’d be back by now,” she explains quietly and suddenly Kate is the one that feels winded.

  
Zeedan. Kate’s friend. Rana’s husband.

  
Doubt lodges itself under Kate’s skin and she abruptly feels so much like the other woman role she’s agreed to play. Zeedan’s ring hangs on Rana’s finger even as it nudges at Kate’s neck, pressing all the right buttons whilst they both struggle with how wrong this is. It’s not fair on him, this dirty little secret they’re determined to create together, and yet being here, holding Rana and knowing how much this unbearable closeness makes them happy, makes _Rana_ happy, it blurs everything. Finally, Kate realises she can’t be arsed with the morality of it all. For the first time in her life Kate’s in love and her conscience be damned because if the choice is letting Rana walk out that door or coiling into her and discovering all the secret parts she’s so far only dreamt of then Kate knows what she wants.

  
“Give me your phone,” she says and Rana gives this little wrinkle of her nose that makes Kate’s heart shudder. But if she means to put up a resistance, as if to say that in spite of everything Zeedan still means something to her, she fails because she hands it over too easily. Kate bashes out a quick message - something about bumping into Michelle and promises of being home later - before she hastily switches the wretched thing off and chucks it onto the settee.

  
“Come here,” she beckons one final time, not letting Rana ask about the content of the text, not giving her mind even a second longer to linger with Zeedan. Right now, Kate wants Rana all to herself. Completely.

  
Before they descend, she takes the opportunity to look at Rana - to inhale the softness of her sigh and the glint in her eyes that makes Kate believe that this is it, this love between them: this is the real thing. And then there’s the smirk blooming on Rana’s lips that Kate can feel herself reciprocating - the smirk that reminds her that as much as Rana loves her, even needs her, right now she _wants_ her. First it makes her shiver, then it makes her act.

  
They fall backward, twisting into each other, meeting and separating like the shore and the tide. Kate feels this intense desire coarsing through her to show Rana what she can do, to make it clear that everything Rana does to her with just a look Kate can return tenfold. Rana may have those chiselled cheek bones amd swathes of enthusiasm, but Kate has experience.

  
It catches her by surprise when she has Rana down to almost nothing at all, like she suddenly realises what she’s doing. She’s leaning over Rana, grasping her head in one hand as she holds herself up with the other. Rana’s hands are decidedly more involved, skirting over the muscles in Kate’s back like a washboard. But when Kate pauses Rana too halts. She blinks up at her, pupils blown and lips, half open, hang bruised.

  
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her chest rising and falling from the athletic foreplay they’ve just concluded. Kate pushes a lock of hair behind her ear, dragging her fingers along her cheek. She just shakes her head, a smile bursting across her cheeks to reassure her and the tension in Rana’s shoulders disappears.

  
“It’s just...” she begins but she realises she can’t express it, can’t verbalise the emotion hammering beneath her ribs that freezes her. She’s wanted to sleep with Rana for a while, since Rana walked through her door and kissed her months ago (no that’s wrong, earlier, much earlier if she was to be honest with herself) but she never thought sex would be so... _revealing_. She feels close to her, one with her as if the bonding of their bodies confirms the binding of their souls. The words she’d professed feel real, a sliver of truth in the midst of all this deception, and Rana is all of a sudden _her’s_ in a way she’s never been anyone else’s. Kate belongs to her here, in these messy sheets with their tangled legs and tightening stomachs, she is Rana’s to do with what she wishes.

  
“I love you,” she settles on, hoping Rana gets it, trusting impossibly that she does and then they’re kissing again, more sensually than before and Kate finds Rana’s neck, collar bone, navel grazing against her teeth. Soon she’s drawing noises from Rana that she is determined to commit to memory and then it’s happening, the culmination of their flirtation, perfect in its imperfection and Kate’s mind swims with nothing but Rana as her lover’s mind empties with unrelenting pleasure.

  
She hears her name on Rana’s lips, uttered like a prayer to her, to Kate, to the goddess of her idolatry. So she shuffles up the bed, lies on her side so that she can fully absorb the spent figure before her, collapsed on her front like a cat. Kate kisses her, she can’t help herself, and when she draws back Rana is gazing back at her, eyes lidded and sultry.

  
“That was... nice,” she remarks dreamily.

  
“Nice?” Kate laughs. “I was hoping for better marks than that.”

  
She pouts but the teasing is obvious and Rana only manages to half-heartedly apologise as she draws one of Kate’s hands up to her lips for a kiss. Kate can’t get enough of it, this completely defenceless Rana whose lips curve into a smile unconsciously and whose heart suddenly feels so light Kate thinks it might blow away in the wind.

  
“I guess I’m still processing,” Rana explains, smirking. “Give me a couple hours and I’ll have the full review.”

  
Kate laughs then, freely, and she feels all of a sudden like a teenager, snuggling into her pillow to contain her giggle.

  
“Guess we’ll have to come up with something to do before then,” she responds coyly.

  
“I can think of a few ideas,” Rana replies, playing with Kate’s hand like she owns it. She seems to study it, study Kate and Kate wonders if she actually is planning a report. But then she meets her eyes and the playfullness vanishes.

  
“I love you too by the way.”

  
Kate doesn’t know what to say. Rana looks at her expectantly but the words don’t come. Rana’s said it before of course, in one form or another. In the past it’s always been disconcertingly passive: _I’ve fallen in love, I’m in love with Kate, I can’t help who I love_. She’s not used to it feeling so direct, to Rana being so unguarded, unashamed of the heart that hides beneath her breast. It’s too much, like taking a breath after nearly drowning. When Rana looks at her like that and speaks to her like this, Kate cannot believe she ever thought she’d been in love before.

  
The silence is stretching too thinly and Rana is beginning to allow panic to sneak back into her mind so Kate decides to put a stop to it.

  
“That’s... _nice_ ,” she smiles and she’s giggling like a school girl as Rana weakly pushes at her, delighting in the offence taken and what starts as pretend fighting ends with Kate’s arms draped around her waist and Rana towering over her, hair framing her face like a halo as she bites her lip teasingly. She leans down, takes Kate’s lips with a long, penetrating kiss that leaves them both breathless.

  
“My turn,” she announces as she withdraws and Kate burns with anticipation at the thought of discovering what Rana has learned from her little tutorial.

  
It turns out to be quite a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, thanks once more for reading. I hope this was a little bit of cotton candy in our current Kana abyss haha. Until next time, ciao.


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